Some History from my Home Town

http://boyertown-trolley.com/history.jpg

I wanted to do a bit of american history that was about my hometown of Boyertown Its about 20 miles SSE from here, and is very comparable to kutztown as far as size and surroundings, take this college away from Kutztown, and you have Boyertown.

The Boyertown Auto Body Works was one of the main industries in boyertown aside from a casket factory and knitting mills and a foundry. These industries have phased out and been replaced by plants owned by large corporations. Today the main plants in town are small branches Federal Mogul (automotive lighting) and Cabot Supermetals (a chemical plant).
Most of you are from PA or at least live here now, and probably have never heard the boyertown casket factory or auto body works. The only real issue i have with any of this is the loss of credit to the people who make these large corporations work, and the small businesses who may or may not become large ones.

I also miss the role my hometown used to play in the industries, today we monitor assembly pre-made parts into aftermarket(cheaper) lights for cars, instead of making from scratch the entire body of the car out of plain sheet metal.

So heres the american history part: I think this change in industry is typical of small towns across the nation. As the skilled labor of fabrication became automated, these small plants become less hands on, once important skills become totally invaluable for the most part. That what I would like to see: a better appreciation for skilled labor.


http://www.autoweek.com/images/articles/103260
this is just another pic of a truck whose body was made in a small plant in boyertown instead of a giant one with robots in Detroit.